In summer, a gardener’s thoughts turn naturally to fruit. More so than ever, if recent statistics from B & Q are to be believed. They say sales of fruit trees are increasing faster than those of vegetable plants, and are up a whole 26 per cent on this time last year. The leap suggests people are being put off by rising food prices, and realising that fruit grown at home is not only tastier and fresher than bought fruit, but might be cheaper, too.

And what fruit could be more British than the humble plum? Ripe, stewed, jammed, pummelled into a chutney or put into a pie, the plum is as versatile as they come.

Mike Austen, guide at the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm in Kent, is seeing the resurgence first-hand. Tomorrow is Plum Day and he will be showing visitors around the laden plum orchards (see What’s On, above). “The plum trees are always very popular,” he says.

“You never seem to get the English plums in supermarkets, so when visitors taste them they get a nice surprise. They’re much juicier and tastier when they haven’t been picked early, put into cold storage and shipped abroad.”

He says that the interest in plums is particularly important because of the dramatic decline in British plum acreage. “Ninety per cent of the commercial plum acreage that we had in the Fifties has been lost,” he says.

Austen cites two main reasons for this decline. “A lot of the industry used to be canning and jam-making, and that was lost. Then the strawberry season got extended, so they were in competition with plums, and plums suffered. They’re due for a bit of a revival. I think people want some more variety in the fruit they buy and the fruit they eat.”

It would seem he’s right. Pershore, in Worcestershire, is holding its second Plum Festival, after a popular inaugural event last year. The town has been famous for fruit growing since medieval times, and the 'Pershore Yellow Egg’, a wonderful cooking plum, was found growing wild here in the early 19th century. There are events throughout this month, including orchard tours on the 18th and 25th, and a farmer’s market on the 21st. Over the Bank Holiday weekend (August 27-29) a plum fair offers music, entertainments and stalls selling all things plummy.

But how do you find the right sort of tree for your garden? Though plum trees are usually slightly bigger than apple or pear trees, new, smaller rootstocks such as 'Pixy’ mean that it is now easier to grow a plum tree in a smaller space. Urban gardeners can fan train them against a wall, as the Victorians used to do.

“Most plums are self-fertile, so you can just have the one tree,” Austen says, “and they’re all relatively easy to grow.” He says there are only two crucial bits of care. First, make sure that the trees are pruned in summer. “If they’re pruned in winter, plums can be susceptible to silverleaf,” he says. The other thing to watch out for is aphids. Austen suggests spraying or using an organic aphid control such as soapy water or garlic spray.

All of the English varieties make for excellent eating, but Austen adds that true connoisseurs should opt for the greengage varieties, such as 'Mirabelle’, which have a rich honey flavour.

For those with the luxury of space, Austen suggests planting a range of different trees to ensure a good crop through the summer. “You could have 'Opal’, which fruits in July, for the early summer, then 'Czar’ for the middle of the season, then 'Marjorie’s Seedling’ for late-summer to October.”

Quite apart from all the fruit, plum trees also give a wonderful spread of white flowers when they blossom in the spring.

Best for jam

Pershore Yellow Egg

Less sweet than some varieties, this hardy, self-fertile golden plum (also known as 'Pershore’) makes excellent jams and pie fillings. Crops in mid- to late August

Best for eating

Greengage

Smaller than other varieties, Prunus domestica subsp. italica, also known as 'Reine Claude’, has a green-yellow skin, smooth-textured flesh and a

rich, sweet flavour

Best all-rounder

'Victoria’

This classic hardy plum, familiar to most British gardeners, fruits in midsummer. It has a red skin and yellow flesh, and is equally good eaten straight from the tree or cooked